Vietnam Execution

• Name: Eddie Adams
• DOB: June 12, 1933
• Death: September 19, 2004
• Awards: He was a Pulitzer Prize winner famous for his portraits of celebrities, politicians, and photojournalists that photographed about thirteen wars. The Vietnam Execution was his noted photograph. It is the picture of police chief General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Vietcong prisoner, Nguyễn Văn Lém, on Siagon street, on February 1, 1968.
• At the scene: Adams watched two Vietnamese soldiers pulling a prisoner out of a doorway at the end of the street. The prisoner appeared to be a Viet Cong in a plaid shirt, his arms tied behind his back. The soldier and the Viet Cong walked towards Adams.
• "Eddie Adams said, 'I just followed the three of them as they walked towards us, making an occasional picture. When they were close - maybe five feet away - the soldiers stopped and backed away. I saw a man walk into my camera viewfinder from the left. He took a pistol out of his holster and raised it. I had no idea he would shoot. It was common to hold a pistol to the head of prisoners during questioning. So I prepared to make that picture - the threat, the interrogation. But it didn't happen. The man just pulled a pistol out of his holster, raised it to the VC's head and shot him in the temple. I made a picture at the same time.' "The prisoner fell to the pavement, blood gushing,
• Adam's Apology: He later apologized in person to the General and his family for the damage he caused for the photograph. When the general died, Adams praised him as a “hero” of a “just cause”

Sociological

• The Viet Cong Officer, although his name is unknown, he had killed at least eight other South Vietnamese people. "'It was justified,'" said Adams. (Browning 1)
• Sometimes photographers utilize their cameras to portray biased opinions just like this one. Adams wanted to get people's sympathy to go to the Viet Cong officer, even though the Americans were siding with South Vietnam.
• "'No war was ever photographed the way Vietnam was, and no war will ever be photographed again the way Vietnam was photographed,'" he says. (Adler 1)
• He wanted people to know about the South Vietnamese perspective and the Viet Cong perspective of the war.
• "'You can see the gun, you can see the expression on the man's face as the bullet enters his head, and you see the soldier on the left who is wincing at the thing that has happened,' says Buell. 'With the still picture, you have time to consider all these factors.'" (Adler 1)

Thích Quảng Đức

• Name: Malcolm Browne
• DOB: 1933
• Awards: Browne is a Pulitzer Prize winning American Journalist and Photographer. His famous work was the photograph of the self - immolation of Buddhist monk,Thích Quảng Đức in 1963.

About the Self-Immolation

• Thích Quảng Đức was a Buddhist monk who burned himself to death in the middle of a busy street in Saigon.
• The monk did this in an act of protest against the persecution of Buddhists under Ngo Dinh Diem.
• Police tried to help him but he was surrounded by a circle of Buddhist clergy who fended them off.
• After he died, his heart remained intact and it became a holy symbol for Vietnam.
• The day after he died thousands of people in Saigon said they had visions of Buddha weeping in the sky.
• "'It was clearly theater staged by the Buddhists to achieve a certain political end,'" said Browne. (Ferrari 1)
• After the film rolls Browne had taken, he said, "'I think combat photographers are very conscious of the idea that the real fear comes later, after they get home and develop their film and have a look at what they were through. Then they are aware that they nearly died.'" (Ferrari 1)